A COMMUNITY group in Church has been saved from closure after residents rallied round to help at the 11th hour.

A COMMUNITY group in Church has been saved from closure after residents rallied round to help at the 11th hour.

Church Central Residents' Association faced the axe two weeks ago when no-one turned up to its annual general meeting.

It had just 14 days to hold a second AGM so that a four-strong committee could be re-elected.

At the time, association secretary Barbara Cliffe said that residents did not appreciate the efforts it had made to improve the area since 1994.

But last Tuesday night - exactly two weeks later - about 28 people gathered for the meeting at Elmfield Hall in Gatty Park, securing the association's future for next year.

Mrs Cliffe said: "We were very disappointed and upset after the last AGM, but we couldn't let the association go. So we asked friends and neighbours if they could come to this one.

"Some people said they hadn't got involved because they thought it was a closed shop, but that isn't the case at all. We have been here since 1995 and it would be nice to have some new faces.

"We decided to make it more of a social evening rather than a meeting, with speeches and presentations kept to a minimum. "We were very pleased with the turnout.

"We had an AGM, which lasted about an hour and a half, and the old committee is now reinstated. It was a very friendly meeting and everything went very well.

"I was really pleased with the number of people who turned up."

Mrs Cliffe added that in the New Year they would be looking into changing the constitution so that their meetings could be held earlier in the year.

She said: "We will be asking if we can move the meetings from October, when it is harder to get people to come out because it gets dark early, to perhaps April or May. We feel we would have a better chance of getting people here then.

"We're also looking into changing the constitution so we only have to hold the meeting every two years in future."

Since the association started nine years ago, it has been behind several pioneering initiatives, including appointing a full-time youth worker, transforming wasteland into a small park, and organising the Go Scatty in Gatty fun day.